Publishing a Java Servlet to Azure Website Using Maven

This blog post shows how to publish a Java Servlet, encapsulated in a WAR file, to an Azure Web Site using FTP via Maven.

The first step will be to generate a simple servlet using Maven:

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mvn archetype:generate -DgroupId=com.example -DartifactId=hello-world -DarchetypeArtifactId=maven-archetype-webapp

This creates a simple, Hello World application in the hello-world directory. We can verify it works by running it in a local servlet container using the instructions found in Supporting mvn jetty:run in Maven applications. Add the Jetty maven plugin to pom.xml under the build section:

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<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"
         xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.eclipse.jetty</groupId>
                <artifactId>jetty-maven-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>9.2.0.M0</version>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>
</project>

You can now run the application in Jetty using mvn jetty:run and visit http://localhost:8080 to ensure it works. Next, you can use mvn package to generate the WAR file target/hello-world.war.

Now let’s switch to the Microsoft Azure Portal to create a Web Site and configure it to run Java applications:

Click New: Website.
Give the website a name (I’ll use hello-world) and then click Create.
Open the website and click Site settings (in the lower left-hand corner).
For Java version, change the setting from OFF to 1.7.0_51.
In Web Container, choose your preferred servlet container (I use Tomcat).
Click Save.

Your Java website is now running at http://hello-world.azurewebsites.net. You can upload WAR files via FTP to the directory /site/wwwroot/webapps and they will become available as part of your site.

Next, set up your website for deployment:

Open the website in the Azure Portal.
Click Set deployment credentials.
Create a deployment username (I’ll use deployme) and password and click Save. Write down the username and password
Click Properties
Write down the FTP host name. Mine is ftp://waws-prod-blu-011.ftp.azurewebsites.windows.net. Also note that the FTP/Deployment User has a hello-world prefix (i.e. it is hello-world\deployme)

We’ll now configure Maven to deploy the website by uploading the WAR file when the user uses mvn install.

Set up the deployment username and password for Maven by editing ~/.m2/settings.xml and add the following section:

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<settings xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/SETTINGS/1.0.0"
          xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
          xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/SETTINGS/1.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/settings-1.0.0.xsd">
    <servers>
        <server>
            <id>azure-hello-world</id>
            <username>hello-world\deployme</username>
            <password>password</password>
        </server>
    </servers>
</settings>

Add wagon-ftp as a build extension to your pom.xml so we can upload files via FTP:

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<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"
         xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
    <build>
        <extensions>
            <extension>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.wagon</groupId>
                <artifactId>wagon-ftp</artifactId>
                <version>1.0-beta-3</version>
            </extension>
        </extensions>
    </build>
</project>

Add wagon-maven-plugin as a build plugin in your pom.xml and instruct it to upload the WAR via FTP when the user runs mvn install:

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<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"
         xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
                <artifactId>wagon-maven-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>1.0-beta-3</version>
                <executions>
                    <execution>
                        <id>upload-war</id>
                        <phase>install</phase>
                        <goals>
                            <goal>upload</goal>
                        </goals>
                        <configuration>
                            <fromDir>${basedir}/target</fromDir>
                            <includes>${project.build.finalName}.war</includes>
                            <url>ftp://waws-prod-blu-011.ftp.azurewebsites.windows.net</url>
                            <toDir>/site/wwwroot/webapps</toDir>
                            <serverId>azure-hello-world</serverId>
                        </configuration>
                    </execution>
                </executions>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>
</project>

You can now deploy your website using mvn install, and visit it at http://hello-world.azurewebsites.net/hello-world.